Albanese is promising fee-free Tafe. How would it work – and why is it causing controversy?

Prime minister Anthony Albanese speaks to university and Tafe students during a meeting at Parliament House in Canberra. Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

Fee-free Tafe has become a major talking point for Labor before the federal election, repeatedly touted by the prime minister as providing cost-of-living relief to half a million Australians.

“We’re very conscious about those cost-of-living pressures,” Anthony Albanese told reporters in early January. “That’s why we have introduced a range of measures, including fee-free Tafe.”